Friend Gabe & Baby Nico

Our first friends here in Iowa are a couple in the same position as we are - left professional positions, a home in Utah, and moved with their family to take a chance on a phD in the great beyond. Thankfully, they are as wonderful as I had imagined when Eric was in contact with John after the orientation last March. It has been great to have not only have built in friends for us, but for Lucy as well.

John and Mariel have two kids, known in our house as "Friend Gabe" (3 on nov 2) and "Baby Nico" (5 months). Gabe is one of Lucy's theoretical friends; she is always super excited about the idea of seeing him but is working on not screaming and running away when Gabe makes a sudden movement, shouts, etc. It's also neat to be able to reference Baby Nico when talking about a new baby here, getting her used to the idea.

Last week I watched Gabe and Nico for a couple of hours while Mariel had a meeting for the job she's starting soon. It was a beautiful day, so I took the kids to the park right outside their apartment. What these pictures don't show is me working to keep track of 2 toddlers, one of whom has a running-away problem, while hanging on to a baby. Perhaps one of the neighbors has a video of me trying to sprint after Lucy while yelling to Gabe to stay put and holding Nico's head steady as he was bouncing around in the baby bjorn carrier? Hopefully not.

Lucy followed Gabe around all afternoon, learning some new tricks. "Watch this, Mommy!"

Nico is such a good baby. He's mellow and goes with the flow, and usually looks like he's doing some deep thinking. Totally unaffected by our two runs after Lucy.

Is this the sweetest? I really do have pictures in my mind of our kids being together for the next five years, maybe a vacation to Disney, etc. I'll post those pictures later.